Aircraft Accident Report 2/2015 - Boeing B787-8, ET-AOP, 12 July 2013
Ground fire at London Heathrow Airport on 12 July 2013
Introduction
On the afternoon of Friday 12 July 2013 the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) was notified of a ground fire in a parked and unoccupied Boeing 787-8 on Stand 592 at London Heathrow Airport. The circumstances surrounding the occurrence did not fall within the definitions of an accident or serious incident as defined in ICAO Annex 13, however, the Chief Inspector, in exercise of his powers under the Civil Aviation (Investigation of Air Accidents and Incidents) Regulations 1996, initiated an investigation, treating the occurrence as a serious incident and invoking the protocols of ICAO Annex 13 with regard to the participation of other interested States. An investigation was commenced immediately and a team of AAIB Inspectors was deployed.
The AAIB were assisted in the investigation by Accredited Representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) (representing the State of Design and Manufacture), the Civil Aviation Authority of Ethiopia (representing the State of Registry and the Operator) and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (representing a State of component manufacture), with technical advisors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the operator and the aircraft and component manufacturers.
Summary
The aircraft suffered extensive heat damage in the upper portion of the aircraft’s rear fuselage, in an area coincident with the location of the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT). The absence of any other aircraft systems in this area containing stored energy capable of initiating a fire, together with evidence from forensic examination of the ELT, led the investigation to conclude that the fire originated within the ELT.
The ground fire on ET-AOP was initiated by the uncontrolled release of stored energy from the lithium-metal battery in the ELT. It was identified early in the investigation that ELT battery wires, crossed and trapped under the battery compartment cover-plate, probably created a short-circuit current path which could allow a rapid, uncontrolled discharge of the battery. Root Cause testing performed by the aircraft and ELT manufacturers confirmed this latent fault as the most likely cause of the ELT battery fire, most probably in combination with the early depletion of a single cell.
Neither the cell-level nor battery-level safety features prevented this single-cell failure, which propagated to adjacent cells, resulting in a cascading thermal runaway, rupture of the cells and consequent release of smoke, fire and flammable electrolyte.
The trapped battery wires compromised the environmental seal between the battery cover plate and the ELT, providing a path for flames and battery decomposition products to escape from the ELT. The flames directly impinged on the surrounding thermo-acoustic insulation blankets and on the composite aircraft structure in the immediate vicinity of the ELT. This elevated the temperature in the fuselage crown to the point where the resin in the composite material began to decompose, providing further fuel for the fire. As a result, a slow-burning fire became established in the fuselage crown and this fire continued to propagate from the ELT location, even after the energy from the battery thermal event was exhausted.
Fourteen Safety Recommendations have been made during the course of the investigation. In addition the ELT manufacturer carried out several safety actions and is redesigning the ELT unit taking into account the findings of this investigation. Boeing and the FAA have also undertaken safety actions.
The following causal factors were identified in the ground fire:
a) A thermal runaway failure of the lithium manganese dioxide battery in the ELT resulted in the uncontrolled release of stored energy within the battery cells.
b) The location and orientation of the ELT, and the compromised seal on the battery cover-plate, allowed the resulting hot gas, flames and battery decomposition products to impinge directly on the aircraft’s composite fuselage structure, providing sufficient thermal energy to initiate a fire in the rear fuselage crown.
c) The resin in the composite material provided fuel for the fire, allowing a slow-burning fire to become established in the fuselage crown, which continued to propagate from the ELT location even after the energy from the battery thermal runaway was exhausted.
d) The Navigation Radio System safety assessment conducted in support of the ELT certification, did not identify any ELT battery failure modes which could represent a hazard to the aircraft, and therefore these failure modes were not mitigated in the ELT design or the B787 ELT installation.
The following factors most likely contributed to the thermal runaway of the ELT battery:
a) The trapped ELT battery wires created a short-circuit condition, providing a current path for an unplanned discharge of the ELT battery.
b) The ELT battery may have exhibited an unbalanced discharge response, resulting in the early depletion of a single cell which experienced a voltage reversal, leading to a thermal runaway failure.
c) The Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) protective device in the battery did not provide the level of external short-circuit protection intended in the design.
d) There was no evidence that the reset behaviour, and the implications of the variable switching point of the PTC, had been fully taken into account during the design of the ELT battery.
e) The absence of cell segregation features in the battery or ELT design meant the single-cell thermal runaway failure was able to propagate rapidly to the remaining cells.
Download full report:
Download bulletin summary:
Safety Recommendation document: